His main problem is anything technical , the what, when , why and how . He does not know the bore sizes , bullets , dates , and the working of the rifle . He does find photos from all over the internet . Some of the info he prints with them may be true , some is not . A perfect example is a photo from WWI showing German troops firing both Gew-98 rifles and K-88 carbines . His caption is the Germans had an ammo supply nightmare , because he thinks they took different ammo . He does not know the S ammo was designed to be fired in the 88 , that German army manuals of the period show the troops how to remove the S ammo from the stripper clip and put it in the En-bloc clip for use in the 88's with no 05 update . That makes his info about the photo wrong. He has no idea the first S ammo was made in 1896 , nor why it was made . There was no Government shipment of Gew-88/05's to Spain . But there where many small batches of about any type rifle that could have came from any where . Everyone was lying , so records are hard to find . England was " neutral " and was enforcing an arms embargo , but they did convert M1914 - 1917 rifles to 8mm and shipped them to Spain through Belgium .

Also if you do have any tech questions , I would be happy to answer them . I own and have inspected 100's of Gew-88's , have a vast ammo collection , A friend with a masters in Imperial German who has spent much time in Europe at WWI digs ,with collectors , and translating original German military documents . I know what all the German and Turk stamps mean . I have one of the only ALL original Gew-88/05 rifles I have every seen . It proves most every thing in the book about 05's wrong .

Well, this is exciting for me. The barrel does slug out to .314-.321. As for the rear sight being changed by someone here, it's possible, but it would have been done long ago, if one believes the story of the guy I got it from. He said he is not a collector or shooter, and the rifle had been sitting in a closet for decades. It was his father's, and the guy did not know when or how his father got it. The guy brought it into a show I had a table at. I bought it for a relatively low price and within hours had a couple of other collectors bugging me to sell it to them. I don't know what to think about the missing flip-up sight. I see Numrich has them. Should I add one or leave it as is?

You do have the original spec barrel , original to your first year rifle . That alone disproves all the .318 crap . You have one of the rarer Gew-88 types , at least a 1 of a 1000 . As far as the flip up , a tough call . To make it look correct you would have to grind out the v notch into a U shape like on top of your sight . That is what the Germans did to make it unusable . And that may have been why someone took it off at one time as it was unusable in that condition .

Considering its relative rarity, what would the general value of this rifle be? The bore is very good, as is the metal. The wood is scuffed in spots but solid, with strong inspection stamps. As I wrote earlier, the parts match except the bolt, which matches itself, and it has the correct rod. I am not selling the rifle, but I do have collectors insurance, so a value would be helpful. Also, I'm just curious, as I have relatively little in it. Thanks again....

That all goes back to all the current books and articles being wrong . Nobody knows what your rifle is because of that . There are about 8 people I know of who really know Gew-88's [ now 9 counting you !!!! ] , so most people will not know what it is . Your rifle is a real live rare German modification that fought in WWI and never went to Turkey nor South America like 99% of the rifles in the US today . I bought all rare rifles on the cheap because people thought they were messed with , or did not know what they were , but I did . A value placed on by me - $ 700.00 Also a + for it being such an early Steyr . Even I do not have an early Steyr with the original barrel .